Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air #2)(76)

Dani reached up Maddie’s skirt, found her garter and a—“You really have a knife up your skirt.”

“If Michelle gets a hold of Shayne, she might—she could make him fly her to Mexico. Where she could get away.”

Dani looked down at the knife in her hands. “So I need to stop her.”

“And do not, and I repeat, do not get yourself hurt. Shayne will kill me if you do, and—” She broke off to grimace in pain.

“Maddie—”

“And…” She let out a breath. “I really like my job.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Dani slipped the knife into her pocket, then peeked under Shayne’s shirt at Maddie’s wound.

“I’m not dead yet.”

“Go.”

Right. Go. Dani cracked the door and peeked out.

Utter silence.

But then, from the far side of the hangar, came a scraping noise, and another. Good. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they were doing it far away. Heart in her throat, she slipped out of the closet and backed up against the wall, next to a stack of boxes, where she hoped like hell she was completely out of sight.

She could see the tail of Michelle’s plane now, and when she moved around the boxes and hid behind a set of portable stairs, she could also see the landing gear. The tires of the landing gear.

Slipping her hand into her pocket, she fingered the knife. If she popped the tires, the plane wouldn’t be able to take off. Felt like a good plan. She ran across the floor toward the phone— “Ah, there you are.”

Uh-oh. Dani slowly tipped her head up. High in the rafters above her knelt Michelle, still looking as if she should be on the cover of a Victoria’s Secret catalog, not holding a gun.

But she was.

Aimed at Dani. But then the gun shifted, and re-aimed—at a spot in the rafters across the way, at the figure of a man steadily making his way toward her.

At Shayne, who wore only his jeans, no shirt, no shoes.

No weapon.

“No,” Dani gasped. “Don’t shoot him. Please don’t shoot him.”

“Oh, I’m not going to shoot him. He’s going to fly me out of here.” Michelle sent a smile toward Shayne. “Soon as I set up the tragic scene here, of course. Shayne? Be a good boy now, and go get my baby ready to fly.” Holding the gun on a very still Shayne, she turned her attention back to Dani. “Look at that. He doesn’t want to leave you.”

“Michelle,” Shayne said very quietly.

“Do you love him?” Michelle asked Dani. “Do you love my pilot?”

Shayne pulled himself a little closer to Michelle, who suddenly whipped her head in his direction. “Don’t.”

He went still, but not Dani, who took the last step to Michelle’s “baby” and slipped her hand into her pocket for the knife.

“Goddamnit, answer me!” Michelle screamed, suddenly not looking so much Victoria’s Secret as ready for a straitjacket.

Dani stared up at Shayne. She couldn’t see his expression clearly, but she could sense his disbelief that she’d left the safety of the closet, his frustration at being held at gunpoint, helpless, his anger that there was nothing he could do to protect her.

“Do you love him?” Michelle yelled to Dani.

Anguish too. There was just enough anguish in his eyes that Dani nearly staggered back. “I do,” she whispered. She cleared her throat, her gaze never leaving Shayne’s. “I love him.” Her eyes burned, her throat tightened at the look of shock and awe on his face. “I love him very much.”

“Well.” Michelle stared down at Dani, who’d have sworn the crazy model’s eyes actually filled with tears. “Then you’re definitely going to have to be taken care of.” Her voice was thick and hoarse. “Aren’t you?”

“No—” Shayne started forward, but Michelle’s head whipped toward him, gun at his chest.

“Do not defend her. Ever. We’re going down. We’re going down and I’m going to do what I have to, and so are you. You’re going to fly me out of here.”

In the split second that Michelle’s attention was on Shayne, Dani scooted behind the landing gear tires, which she sincerely hoped would absorb any flying bullets. God, she really hoped that as she stabbed the first tire.

“You cannot make me fly you anywhere,” Shayne was saying.

Dani could hear his voice clearly far above her as she crawled on her hands and knees toward the next tire.

“Yes, Shayne, I can,” Michelle assured her. “And you know why? Because I have the gun.” But then her scream of fury bounced off the walls as she discovered Dani gone.

The gun went off then, and Dani, crawling the last few feet between the tires, actually closed her eyes. Such a girl thing to do, but blindly she stabbed out with the knife and blessedly connected with the next tire at the same time that she heard another furious scream.

“Not my baby, don’t you touch my baby!”

Then something slammed into Dani’s arm, spinning her around. Dropping the knife, she hit the cold floor. On her back now, she had this great view of the ceiling, though a funny haze that was slowly taking over her vision. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t really feel.

But she could see. And what she saw stopped her heart—Shayne, diving at Michelle. Both of them flying through the air toward the ground, hitting the wing of the plane, bouncing off it, and vanishing from her line of vision.